I disagree that this is unambiguous, I was also confused reading this headline. It's odd wording. It may be technically correct but that doesn't mean it's unambiguous.

[–] FiniteLooper@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“…shot and killed an unarmed…” would be a much better phrasing

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Or "shot dead an unarmed black man". Three additional characters would have fixed this. I've long been frustrated by the journalistic style of removing every possible word from headlines. We're no longer reading these things printed on dead trees, there's no extra ink being spent or space wasted.

[–] Polar@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Many apps or websites cut titles off, though. It's important to keep them short.

I wish more people followed proper journalistic formats. Frustrates me when the first sentence is supposed to have everything you need to know - who, what, where, when, why, how - but instead these gen Z journalists think they should bury the details 5 paragraphs deep.

The proper way to write an article is to give the reader everything they need to know from the first sentence, and then expand in detail with each following paragraph, from most important to least.

[–] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

I'd probably go with

London Cop Charged With Murder For Shooting Unarmed Black Man Dead

[–] naught@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"Dead" and "unarmed" are adjectives and if they were being used like you thought, they should have a comma between them. I agree that it's potentially vague, but if you read it in your BBC broadcaster voice it should help

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's ambiguous. Adjectives don't need a comma like that, especially when there are two. You don't say "look at that small, red, fire hydrant", you just say "look at that small red fire hydrant" (and technically, you could call "fire" an adjective there too).

[–] naught@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure whether it is a hard and fast rule, but that sentence to me should be:

Look at that small, red, fire hydrant

Looks like it's a fairly complicated and nuanced grammar rule:

https://style.mla.org/coordinate-adjectives-commas/

[–] Zippy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Could you put a common after dead to make it less ambiguous?

[–] nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info 2 points 1 year ago

you could, but that would just make it sound like the cop shot a man who has already been dead even more